What Greater Pain
by icyfire
Summary: Post-"The Telling" fic. Jack tries to hold the pieces together after Sydney's disappearance, but who can help him?
1. Default Chapter

Title: What Greater Pain  
  
Author: Robin/icyfire (wideyed@mikrotec.com)  
  
Summary: Post-"The Telling" fic. Jack tries to hold the pieces together after Sydney's disappearance, but who can help him?  
  
Ship: Jack/Irina, although it really wasn't supposed to be  
  
Rating: PG-13 I would think  
  
Disclaimer: No, I'm not JJ. Never have produced a TV show or written a screenplay for major movies. I'm also not a mouse with way-too-big ears, and I'm not the beginning of the alphabet. Oh, and I'm way too smart to try to earn money with these characters.  
  
A/N: Yes, I've joined the crowd. I had to write some post-"The Telling" fic.  
  
Thanks to Jenai for the encouragement. Thank you to Celli and Karen T. for the beta. As always, all mistakes are mine and mine alone. They just kept helping me make the story better and better with all their work.  
  
Happy (early) birthday, Mai! I hope it's as fantastic as you are. :) And I hope you enjoy your fic gift.  
  
***  
  
There was someone in his apartment.  
  
An instinct brought on by experience warned him as he cracked open the door, and an instinct brought on by training made him reach for his gun. His hands wrapped around the metal just as Kendall's earlier words played through his mind. The anger he had felt then was gone, replaced now with overwhelming despair. Dropping his head, he let go of the weapon, leaving it in his holster.  
  
Setting his jaw, he pushed open the door and walked into his apartment. The lights of the city scattered through the terrace doors. He didn't bother trying to search out the person waiting for him; he would let Jack know of his presence soon enough.  
  
He strolled over to the bar. Setting a tumbler down, he reached for a bottle of aged Scotch. Maybe he would have time for one more drink.  
  
Icy metal touched the back of his neck just after he finished gulping down the fine liquor as if it were cheap beer. He hoped they would just pull the trigger. No grandstanding, no questions. Just let the darkness overtake him.  
  
"Where is she?"  
  
He closed his eyes, knowing that the woman behind him would no more kill him than he would kill her. Or that she would only kill him for the one reason he would kill her. He slowly turned and faced her, examining her, wondering when she had aged so much, knowing the answer. They had both aged decades in the last few days.  
  
"That's the question, isn't it?" he whispered into the darkness.  
  
Light glistened at him from her eyes as her mouth become harder. "I don't have time for games, Jack."  
  
"And I don't have the inclination."  
  
He turned back to the bar and picked up a larger glass. He filled it to the brim. Irina pushed the gun into his back. "Tell me where she is, Jack."  
  
Kendall's words dragged through his mind again. He wouldn't repeat them. Not now. Maybe never. "You think this is some kind of shell game by the CIA," he realized. He took another gulp of Scotch. If there would be no bullet to bring him relief tonight, maybe he could find the numbness in alcohol. He had once, a long time ago, when he was young and grieving for his dead wife. A foolish young man who believed in love and happy endings had sought comfort in the warmness of alcohol.  
  
The gun pressed harder into his back. "I don't have time for this, Jack. Where the hell is she?"  
  
He took another gulp. This time it didn't even burn. "Put the gun down, Irina. We both know you won't shoot me."  
  
"What makes you so sure of that?"  
  
Turning, he leaned back against the bar, resting his elbows on the marble countertop. "Because you would only shoot me if I harmed Sydney. It's the only reason that you would kill me. Just like it's the only reason I would kill you." Another gulp. Maybe he could pass out within the hour. Actually sleep through the night.  
  
The pistol in her hand trembled as she lowered it. "Jack?"  
  
He'd never heard her sound so confused, so scared. "Remember the Eiperts?"  
  
She nodded. "Our neighbors. Of course I remember them. I still occasionally crave Linda's soup."  
  
"She did know how to make great soup."  
  
"It was the only thing she could make that tasted good," Irina said, sounding more like Laura than the spy he knew she was.  
  
"Remember their fights? How they used to scream at each other? Robert was always so calm and pleasant until the fights started, and then he was like a different man."  
  
Irina nodded. "We always wondered why they didn't get divorced."  
  
"Now we know." He stood away from the bar and stumbled into his living room. The city of Los Angeles spread out before him through his terrace doors.  
  
Irina was standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room. He knew without even looking; he could feel her. "What do we know?"  
  
He continued to stare at the city. "That it's possible to love and hate at the same time."  
  
Her gasp was the only sound in the room for a few minutes. "Jack, where is she? Please tell me the truth."  
  
He finished the contents of his glass. "The CIA doesn't know, Irina." He was silent for a few heartbeats. "I don't know."  
  
"Jack, don't lie to me. Not about this."  
  
"The CIA doesn't know, and it doesn't look like they will ever know."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Jack stared down at the empty glass. "My old friend Sloane is getting to be too big of a problem. Resources are being wasted by looking for one agent. Kendall pulled Vaughn and me into his office today to tell us. He said she was 'missing and pr--'." He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't say the words. Not now. Maybe never.  
  
The sound of Irina sinking down to the floor reached his ears. He turned, saw her on her knees, tears in her eyes. He let the glass in his hand hit the floor as he walked to her. Sinking down before her, he drew her into his arms, offering comfort. He felt her tears through the front of his shirt.  
  
It took a few minutes to realize he was crying with her.  
  
***  
  
Irina sat up, her muscles protesting. She looked down at the man sleeping beside her. Even with the lack of sleep and the ravishment of tears still on his face, he still managed to be the most handsome she'd ever seen. Intellectually, she knew she had been in the presence of men with better physiques. She had been with men who graced posters in most teenage girls'- -and a lot of women's--bedrooms. However, none of them did to her what Jack did.  
  
Looking at herself in the mirrored closet doors, she grinned. Bruises, bite marks, and scratches from fingernails made their presence known in full force this morning. Looking back at the still sleeping Jack, she knew that she should get away while she could, but she wanted to take a shower. Any other agent would call in for a team, but she knew Jack wouldn't want anyone to know he'd spent the night in his wife's arms. He wouldn't call in a team--at least not yet.  
  
She had to admit that his stunt with Sydney had drawn her out into the open, just as he'd planned. And last night, tired from three nights with little sleep, she had fallen for his act. For a few brief moments, she had believed that their daughter was really missing.  
  
And after the way Jack made love to her last night, with a desperation she had never seen from him, she had worried that maybe it wasn't just a part of their game. Gathering her scattered clothes, she looked at him. He did love her. She didn't doubt it. She also didn't doubt his hatred.  
  
However, she didn't hate him. Sometimes she came close. He was the only man who made her lose her focus. Like last night. Her goal to find out where the CIA was hiding her daughter had been unmet. Walking into the master bathroom, she knew that it would be soon fulfilled. She knew Jack; he wouldn't be able to stay away from Sydney for long. He would need to see for himself that she was safe, and he would go to the safe house where the CIA was keeping her. And a team of her most trusted employees would follow him and inform her.  
  
Letting the hot water of the shower pour over her, she remembered Sydney's first mission. It had been a simple drop. She was to give a box to a man on a train. An untrained housewife could do it, and Sydney had been through months of training by the time Sloane had given her that first mission. Sydney had never noticed her father watching over her from a distance, and Jack had never noticed her watching over them.  
  
He opened the door to the shower stall. Irina turned and saw him through the steam. "I'll wash your back," he said, stepping into the shower with her.  
  
***  
  
Irina ran the towel through her hair. She was already dressed, and her hair was almost completely dried, but was trying to get it as dry as possible before taking the hairdryer to it. The heat did terrible things to her hair.  
  
Jack was dressed in a black t-shirt and a pair of black denim jeans. It used to be his favorite off-duty outfit, but Irina had a sneaking suspicion that neither piece of clothing made its way out of his closet often these days.  
  
He was leaning against the windowsill, drinking a cup of coffee. After their shower, he had barely spoken to her, lost in thought. Again, a suspicion that he honestly didn't know Sydney's location whispered through her mind. Again, she pushed it away.  
  
After she finished blow drying her hair, he turned to watch her. He leaned forward and put down the empty mug on the nightstand. When she was still Laura, his side of the bed had a picture of her and Sydney, one of Sydney's many "I love you, Daddy" drawings taped to a lamp, and a few different novels that he was always in the middle of reading. Now it only held a lamp and an alarm clock.  
  
"Do you have access to a plane?"  
  
Her eyes met his through the mirror. "Yes."  
  
"Are you going to see Arvin?"  
  
She hesitated for a moment, wondering about his game, trying to figure out what was the best hand to play. Decided on honesty. "Yes."  
  
His eyes shifted to the right, letting her know that he was lost in thought. She stood up and reached for the tiny bag she had brought with her.  
  
"Give me fifteen minutes."  
  
She froze, inside and out. "What?"  
  
"I'll need about fifteen minutes to pack."  
  
She couldn't look at him. "Why?"  
  
"Because I'm going with you," was all he answered.  
  
She heard the doors to his closet open. She heard a suitcase being drawn out of it. "Jack--"  
  
"I know you think I know where she is, Irina, because a part of me believes you know where she is. But I think both of us know that she's really gone, and that we are her only chance. And we have a better chance of saving her from whoever has her working together than apart."  
  
The truth of his words ripped through her. Her daughter was missing. She felt like she couldn't breathe. "Jack, I don't believe the CIA will condone your working with me. Even if it is to find out daughter."  
  
"The CIA can go to hell." The tone was mild, but she heard the venom in the words.  
  
"Jack--" She turned to look at him and finally saw the outfits he was packing. Turtlenecks, jeans, slacks, and t-shirts. The suits and ties remained untouched. "They'll condemn you as a traitor."  
  
"They can condemn me. Just as I condemn them."  
  
"Jack, you'll be a wanted man. They'll hunt--."  
  
His hands were suddenly on her shoulder, squeezing. "I don't give a damn what they want. I've given them all I'm willing to give. I want my daughter back, and I intend to find her. Now, will you help me or do I do this alone?"  
  
Irina wanted to yell at him for lying to her. She wanted him to admit that he knew where Sydney was, that this was all a complicated plot to get her and Sloane. Looking into his eyes in the brightness of the morning, she knew that he was being totally honest with her. A single tear trickled down her cheek as she nodded. "Let me call the pilot."  
  
She watched as he finished packing. Neither one of them said anything as he took his badge and his company-issued gun and laid them on the dresser. She took his free hand as they walked towards the door. "We'll find her, Jack."  
  
"Of course we will," he replied.  
  
She wondered if either one of them believed it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Jack slept on the plane. He apparently could do it easily now, but she remembered when he used to have to force himself to sleep. He would tell her about fighting with himself to relax during the flights when he returned home from his numerous trips. "It gives me more time to spend with my girl," he used to whisper before they were married. "It gives me more time to spend with my girls," he used to say as he picked up a squealing Sydney after they were married.  
  
Carefully covering him in an afghan, she walked towards the galley in the back. She poured herself a shot of Vodka and inhaled it. Her nerves refused to be steadied. She reached for a phone and punched in the numbers that would get her in contact with Sloane. She ignored his pleasantries and got to the point. "Jack's with me."  
  
Sloane was silent for a moment. "Voluntarily?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Arvin, he's saying he doesn't know where Sydney is."  
  
"Do you believe him?"  
  
She looked at the sleeping man and thought about the way he'd held her last night. As if she were a lifeline he was desperate not to lose. "Yes."  
  
"Damn," he muttered. "We'll find her, Irina."  
  
"Of course we will," she answered, hanging up the phone.  
  
Jack's eyes met hers when she walked out of the galley. "Is Arvin going to meet us at the airport?"  
  
She shook her head. "No, we'll be taken to his home."  
  
Jack closed his eyes. "Good."  
  
"Jack, he doesn't know where she is."  
  
"Of course he doesn't," he replied.  
  
She was suddenly so tired of the game. "He doesn't."  
  
On the way to the airport, he had told her what the CIA knew. In a dispassionate voice, he talked about voice mail messages, shattered glass and blood. Tippin was in critical condition at a hospital, an ambulance called for him by Sydney. Jack had played the 911 call over and over again, listening to his daughter beg for help for her friend. Listened knowing that the 911 operator was the last known person to have talked to Sydney.  
  
Allison, the fake Francie, was in stable condition and surrounded by FBI agents. She had refused to talk however, even to him, although he knew that he had managed to rattle her far more than any other agent had managed. Irina, knowing them both, knew that Jack Bristow was one of a very small group of people that could cause fear in Allison.  
  
Sydney, however, was not to be found. Her blood was everywhere in the apartment. Jack talked about looking at each dried spot, wondering if it came from their daughter. He talked about the bloody door handle, opened by Sydney, and the missing car keys and the left-behind purse. Her car had been found near a bus station, Sydney's bloody palm prints all over the steering wheel.  
  
She sank on her knees beside him. "Jack, what are we going to do?"  
  
"We're going to look for her. Unlike Kendall and the CIA," he said with a hint of steel.  
  
He'd also told her about the CIA's refusal to spend any more resources on finding one agent, albeit an excellent one. Jack had told her Kendall's declaration that she was missing--he didn't finish the thought, but she knew exactly what Kendall believed. He was too much of an "in the box" thinker, and logic said that Sydney Bristow was not alive.  
  
She had always preferred to listen to instinct herself. "Arvin doesn't have her. He couldn't have," she whispered.  
  
Jack pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "We'll know soon enough."  
  
Irina settled her stomach through force of will. Now was not the time to lose control. Everything was too dangerous, especially since she was bringing two volatile men together. She started to stand and froze when his eyes met hers. "I never hated you, Jack."  
  
He chuckled but it wasn't a sound of amusement. "Yes, you have. I'm the only person--outside of Sydney, which is different--who can disturb your focus." His hand stroked her hair again. "Just like you are the one person who can disturb mine."  
  
The honesty again. It made her shiver, made her instincts scream. A Jack this open, this honest, would not be playing games with her. Jack, even for the CIA, would never make himself so vulnerable before her.  
  
As she walked away, she thought of the effect his words were having on her, and she wondered which one of them was truly the vulnerable one.  
  
***  
  
Sloane smiled at him. "Jack," he said, acting as if Jack had only been on vacation instead of working with the enemy to bring him down.  
  
Jack admired what the man had managed to accomplish in such a short time. The villa where they were screamed of elegance and money. The men with hidden guns spoke of trained power. Jack noticed their presence the moment the gates had opened for the stretch limo that had picked him and Irina up at the airport. He didn't care about Sloane's wealth or his power. He came here for answers.  
  
The barrel of his gun was pressed against Sloane's forehead before anyone could stop him. "Jack!" Irina said, taking a step forward.  
  
"Stay back," he said. To his surprise, she listened.  
  
Sloane's eyebrows shot up. Obviously, he was surprised, too. "Hello, Jack," he said, looking calmly at the man holding a gun to his head.  
  
"Do you have my daughter?"  
  
"Why would I kidnap Sydney?"  
  
"You wanted me to work for you again."  
  
"I wanted your loyalty and your friendship. I can't get either by hurting her. I told you, Jack, if I knew what it would've cost me, I would have never recruited her. I've learned my lesson."  
  
Jack wasn't interested in listening to Sloane's apologies for ancient sins. He wanted an answer to his question. "Do you have my daughter?"  
  
"No."  
  
He didn't want to believe him. He didn't want to, but he did. He lowered his gun and felt his shoulders slump. Irina's arms wrapped around him. "We'll find her, Jack."  
  
"And I'll help you," Sloane offered.  
  
He didn't have the strength to ask his former friend what the cost would be. He knew Arvin Sloane would demand payment. It was his way. He might even demand Jack's soul. But if he could bring his daughter back home safely, he was more than willing to pay that price.  
  
***  
  
Irina watched as Jack made his way to the bed and fell into it. She walked out of the shadows of the room, and Jack sighed when he saw her. She realized he had known she was in the room the moment he entered it. So much for her attempt to watch him undetected.  
  
Walking over to the bed, she studied the man in front of her. He had lost weight. His face was close to being gaunt. The added lines etched in his face made him age prematurely.  
  
Kicking her leg over, she straddled him. "Jack, you need to get some rest."  
  
He shook his head. "I can't."  
  
"It's been four months, Jack." They both knew what that meant. The missing were usually found quickly, if they were found at all. Four months could be a lifetime in their profession. And if she was alive . . .  
  
He tensed beneath her. "I can't give up."  
  
She nodded her understanding, pushing her hair behind her ear as she tried to think of what to say. She understood the feelings that drove him. Every night she cried in her bed. She had spent hours, days, at the beginning turning over every rock, slowly accepting that the man beneath her was too desperate, too full of despair, to be pretending.  
  
Sydney was missing, and four months later, they were no closer to finding her.  
  
His hands reached up and cupped her face. The pressure behind his touch was almost painful, but he made sure not to hurt her. He forced her to look him in the eyes. "Why did you leave her with me?"  
  
For a moment, she was confused. She closed her eyes and remembered the dark days that followed her "escape" from the life of Laura Bristow. "I couldn't take her."  
  
"Don't lie to me, Irina."  
  
She opened her eyes. "I couldn't. It wasn't safe, and I knew you would never let her go. You let me walk away, but you would have never let me walk away with her."  
  
"I thought you were dead."  
  
"You thought it, but I think there were times you doubted it. It's not like you, Jack. You didn't even read the reports filed on me."  
  
"I was grieving."  
  
"And you didn't want to know the complete truth," she said, leaning her forearms on his chest. She could feel his breath on her face.  
  
"I knew enough truth. You'd lied to me."  
  
"Not about everything," she admitted before she could stop herself. The last four months had found her working mostly side by side with her husband. She never admitted to anyone, not even herself, the tiny thrill that had shot through her the day Jack admitted they were still married. It was only a legality, but it mattered to her for reasons she didn't want to examine.  
  
His tired eyes examined her and then he shook his head. "I failed her."  
  
"Jack--"  
  
"I caused all of this."  
  
For a moment, she thought he was admitting his part in a deception. "Jack-- "  
  
"I could've run. I should've run. The day the CIA let me out of that prison, I should've grabbed Sydney and ran to a place where no one could find us."  
  
Irina swallowed the denial she wanted to utter. She would've found them. "You did what you thought was best."  
  
"And look what it did to our daughter."  
  
"You were a good father."  
  
His laughter shook her. "A good father? No, Irina, I was never ever that. Occasionally, I was an acceptable father, but never a good one."  
  
She wanted to argue with him, but looking down at him, she found that she lacked the strength. He wouldn't listen to her arguments anyway. He was so damn stubborn. Just like her.  
  
Her lips meet his before she could think about it. She wanted to offer him comfort, and her body was the only way she could express it. The words were too hard to find.  
  
His hands reached around her, bringing her head closer to him. It felt as if he wanted to inhale her. His lips were everywhere as he flipped her. His groin pressed into hers as he pressed her down onto the mattress.  
  
"I want you," he whispered. He used to say "I love you" at the beginning of their lovemaking, but at least he was talking. The last two times--the first time in Panama and the second time while they mourned Sydney's loss together--he had not said a word the entire time. He'd moaned, he'd groaned, but not a word had passed his lips.  
  
"I want you, too," she moaned as his lips worked their way down her throat.  
  
He licked the spot between the V of her button-up blouse before turning his head and licking the hard nipple through the white cotton. When Sloane had called her earlier to let her know Jack's plane was landing, she had quickly taken a shower and dressed. For some reason, she had left off her bra.  
  
But as his tongue licked across the tautness, she knew why. She wanted to be in his arms, needed to be. She was tired of waking up alone, of crying alone in her bed. Even more, she needed to be with him, needed to know that he slept through the night instead of strategizing and agonizing.  
  
They had spent the last four months together emotionally. They had talked in ways she would not have believed possible had they not been united in fear for their daughter. Jack had laid himself open to her, lacking the strength to use his carefully constructed mask around her. He still wore a shattered version of it around Sloane, around everyone else, but he didn't with her.  
  
And she found her mask slipping around him. He was the man she once loved. Still loved? He was the father of her daughter, the man she trusted with her most precious possession. They had lived together as man and wife for a decade, and by the law of his land, they were still married.  
  
"You always loved your nipples being touched," he muttered as his hand slid down across her free breast. She gasped as his fingers danced across the aching nub. His fingers grasped it and gently squeezed, sending pleasure through her.  
  
"I remember how much you enjoyed--" she started, pulling up his shirt. She stopped when she saw the still-red scar on his shoulder.  
  
He saw where she was looking. "It doesn't hurt," he whispered, starting to lean back down to kiss her.  
  
Putting her hand over it, she remembered the day Sloane told her about Jack's injury. There had been a subtle hint of a grin on Arvin's face. It had only taken her moments to realize why. Jack had killed a CIA officer sent to take him in. He had been injured in the process, but he had forever severed his ties with the agency he had spent decades working for. His loyalty was no longer with them.  
  
Sloane didn't have Jack's loyalty either, but the man was smart enough to know that a man with no master was easier to lure than a man with one. His desire to have Jack back as his friend and faithful ally was known by all. She was unsure of why, and that disturbed her, but she believed she could protect Jack if he didn't have the strength to protect himself.  
  
"You could've been killed."  
  
"Could've been," he agreed, his lips back against her throat.  
  
Fear rose in her chest. "Jack, you have to be more careful."  
  
He paused in the middle of unbuttoning her shirt with his teeth. "I was careful."  
  
She pushed him away. "No, you weren't. Any more than you were careful the night I visited your apartment. You let me put a gun to the back of your head."  
  
"Irina--"  
  
Grasping the sides of his head, she looked into his eyes. "Promise me you'll be careful."  
  
He stared at her for a moment. "Do promises really matter between us?"  
  
"They do to you. You always keep your promises," she said. She leaned forward and kissed him again. This time she didn't let worry or fear stop her from taking what she wanted. What she needed. 


	3. Chapter 3

Irina was dressing when Jack awoke the next morning. He watched her brush her hair. When they had first met, back in the days when she introduced herself as Laura, it had been short, but he preferred it long and flowing around her. "One of these mornings, I would like to wake up and find you in bed," he said.  
  
She tensed, and he knew she was surprised. He was, too. He had just told his wife--ex-wife, dead wife, wife--that he wanted to sleep with her again. And again. And again. It seemed like every day that he told himself that he was a fool to trust her, to reveal so much, but he had to talk to someone, and she was the one person who understood.  
  
When he paused in the middle of searching through intel reports and talked about Sydney's first tooth and how much she had loved her Mr. Snuggly doll, she understood. They shared those memories. They had cried over her together in the delivery room. No one else could understand the feelings they had, no matter how many times they mouthed the "I'm so sorry" line.  
  
"I had to get up early. I have to begin planning Sark's extraction today."  
  
Jack froze in the middle of getting out of bed. His first instinct was to find a phone and warn Kendall. Gritting his teeth, he stood and stretched. He noticed Irina studying him in the mirror, particularly his ass. She had told him more than once that she loved that part of his anatomy.  
  
"Who are you taking with you?"  
  
"Lance and his team."  
  
He stopped tying his robe and left it hanging open. "Lance?"  
  
"He's a good man and well trained."  
  
"He still has pimples."  
  
She smiled at him as she put on her makeup. "Yes, but I've seen pictures of a very young Jack Bristow. He had pimples, too."  
  
"And made a lot of mistakes until I learned the hard way. You're going to waltz into a high-security building with a man who can't even legally drink yet leading your team?"  
  
She chuckled. "He's years past the legal drinking age here. It's only in the States he can't drink, and we won't be there for long." Putting down her lipstick, she shrugged. "He's good, and resources are strained right now."  
  
"Taking over major parts of the world in such a covert manner has to be taxing," Jack replied.  
  
She turned on the stool she was sitting on. After staring at him for a moment, she smiled and shook her head. "Of course you noticed what's happening."  
  
"I'm not stupid."  
  
"No," she agreed. "But the Jack I once knew would've tried to stop it."  
  
He found it hard to swallow. "The Jack you once knew had a reason to fight."  
  
It was the closest he had come to admitting, even to himself, that maybe Sydney was not out there somewhere waiting on him to rescue her. And without Sydney, the concepts of good and evil, of a right side and wrong side, were meaningless to him.  
  
Shaking his head, he cleared his thoughts and focused on the now. "Why bother getting Sark out?"  
  
"He's too good to leave in the CIA's hands. Besides, he'll soon start believing we aren't coming for him."  
  
Jack understood. "He didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what he knew about your organization in his debriefing, did he?"  
  
Her grin was answer enough. "We need him."  
  
"You're not going in with just Lance and his team."  
  
Irina looked at him, and he knew then why she had been assigned such an inexperienced man for such an important job. She understood, too. But what would be his decision?  
  
Looking at her, he knew he had no choice. Just as Sloane had intended.  
  
***  
  
"I was surprised to find you in the debriefing with the team, Jack."  
  
"I'm leading the mission."  
  
Sloane's eyebrow lifted in mock surprise. Jack could see the pleasure the other man was trying to hide. He believed he had won some game, but he didn't realize Jack was too tired to play games anymore. "I thought Irina was leading the mission while you searched for Sydney."  
  
Jack sat down across from his former friend. "Irina is also supposed to be searching for Sydney."  
  
Sloane leaned forward and rested his elbows on his hand-carved desk. "There aren't enough leads for both of you to investigate, and I need Sark back in the fold."  
  
"I'm leading that team, Sloane."  
  
"Irina is okay with this?"  
  
Jack remembered his earlier discussion with her. She had protested, but in the end she had agreed that he was the best one to lead them into that building. "She knows that I'm the best option you have. I know more about the security of that building, and I know the people that work there."  
  
"Which could make you a liability."  
  
"But it won't. Let's quit playing games, Sloane. You wanted me to lead the team, but you knew I wouldn't do it if you asked. So you sent Irina in with a young man too inexperienced for the job."  
  
Sloane chuckled. "Let's be totally honest. Yes, I want you on my team. But Irina and Lance can handle the extraction. However, your help may make it an easier."  
  
"Which would make the CIA look even more foolish than if you had gotten him out at a great cost to your team."  
  
Getting out of his seat, Sloane walked over to a wall covered in monitors. He watched the various parts of his organization, and Jack again had to admire what the man had accomplished. If the CIA had not been so foolish in their handling of the man, he could have helped return them to the threat they had been in the early years of the Cold War.  
  
"An extraction is still an extraction, but--"  
  
"You still like to win by the largest margin possible."  
  
"You would think," Arvin began, turning to look at him, "that after all these years, after everything that has happened, I would be able to get past what they did to me."  
  
"What they did to you--"  
  
"What they did to you was almost as bad," Arvin said, interrupting him. "You gave them everything, Jack, and they stopped looking for Sydney within a week."  
  
"There was no evidence for them to follow."  
  
"My teams found clues."  
  
"You have avenues that the CIA doesn't."  
  
"The CIA had the same avenues, Jack. They just chose not to use them." Sloane shook his head as he sat down in the chair next to Jack. "You're still loyal to them."  
  
"No," Jack answered honestly, but he gave no insight into his thoughts. He knew to reveal too much to Sloane would be suicidal. He knew the same could be said of Irina. Even though his head told him that everything he told Irina was told to Sloane, he wanted to believe he could trust her. Even after all the betrayals, he still wanted to believe that not everything in his marriage had been a lie. He wanted to believe that she loved Sydney, too.  
  
"Jack, we've been given another lead." Sloane reached forward and picked up a file lying on his desk. He handed it to Jack as he said, "A few contacts of mine in K-Directorate have informed me about a woman agent being held at one of their facilities."  
  
"Sydney?"  
  
Sloane hesitated a moment before replying. "I don't know."  
  
Jack started flipping through the pages of the file. However, the speed of his movements were more from habit than a real belief that this might be the break they'd been working for. After four months, after so many trails that he'd forgotten some of them, it was hard to have faith, although he continued to act as if he felt it.  
  
Because if he started to act like he no longer believed he would find Sydney, if he started allowing himself to know what a part of him believed was true, he would go insane.  
  
"I want you to trust me, Jack."  
  
"Trust you?" His voice cracked on the words. "How I've missed your poker face," Sloane had said to him in the lost few days of life before Sydney's disappearance. His poker face had been stripped from him raw, and he couldn't even hide his reactions from Sloane anymore, not totally.  
  
There was a hint of anger in the brown eyes across from him. "Yes, trust me. Except for recruiting Sydney against your wishes, I've never done anything to harm you, Jack. I set up everything for the Alliance's fall, but I made sure that you and Sydney would make it out alive. I could've killed you both, Jack, when I discovered your betrayal, but I didn't."  
  
Jack looked back down at the file. "What do you want from me, Arvin?"  
  
"I want you to stay out of this," he replied, pointing to the file.  
  
"If it's Sydney--"  
  
"If it's Sydney, my agents inside of K-Directorate will find out. Not you."  
  
Jack closed his eyes, and thought of the last time he had seen his daughter. He had been in a hospital bed, very much against his will. The CIA doctors had told him he would spend the night, or he would be taken off the duty roster. He had chosen to stay, but now he had to wonder what would've happened if he had asked Sydney to stay instead of freezing her away, an action done more from habit than a real need to protect her now.  
  
When Vaughn had walked into his room a few hours later, Jack had almost rolled his eyes, believing that Sydney had sent him to check on her father. But then he had seen the look of despair in Vaughn's eyes, the numbness that had mirrored his own when a police officer told him that his wife had died in a car accident. He had started to deny Vaughn's words before he even spoke them.  
  
"She's my daughter, Arvin--"  
  
"And my agents are in a much better position to check out this lead than you are," he said, sounding like the boss he used to be.  
  
The hairs on the back of Jack's neck jumped in protest. Working for Sloane was not an option, no matter how much it appeared to the world that was what he was doing. No matter how many contacts Sloane sent out telling the world that Jack Bristow was his again.  
  
Sloane leaned forward. "Jack, go with Irina, get Sark, and let my agents do their work."  
  
Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. The words weren't spoken, but Jack understood that they were implied. Sloane wasn't sure that putting Irina in a potentially dangerous situation was enough of a lure. "I'll get Sark. You make sure those agents of yours get this woman out. Whoever she is."  
  
"Of course," he answered softly. Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes.  
  
Jack stood and walked out of the office. Irina was waiting for him. "Jack, Lance is well trained. He can handle--."  
  
"Sloane offered another incentive." Her eyebrow rose in question, and he rubbed his forehead. "K-Directorate has an unnamed and totally unidentified female agent in custody."  
  
"Arvin has a few double agents in their organization."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Jack, if you do this, Sloane will only start reeling in the rope. You'll be working for him before you even realize it."  
  
He believed the concern that he saw on her face was real, and he wondered if he was crazy. She had betrayed him. More than once. Kissing the top of her forehead, he whispered, "Don't worry. I'm going to get her back."  
  
"No matter the cost?" She shook her head. "Sydney wouldn't approve."  
  
"No, but then she is the best of both of us."  
  
Irina shook her head again. "No, she's the best of you." She walked away before he could reply. 


	4. Chapter 4

If eyeballs could shoot laser weapons, Jack would be dead. Most of the agents sitting with their hands behind their heads and their knees on the floor were looking at him with disbelief, but Kendall was taking this personally. He almost wanted to explain that it wasn't, but he knew the other man wouldn't listen.  
  
"Jack," Will said, unable to remain quiet as Irina and Lance freed Sark.  
  
The operative standing beside him hit him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle before he could say more. Will groaned and slumped over in pain. "Stop," Jack snapped and rushed forward, his gun loose in his hand.  
  
Bending down, he took advantage of the moment. "Meet me at McGuff's on the beginning of the sixth month," he whispered as he helped Will sit up straight.  
  
Will showed no response to the whispered words. "You can't do this, Jack," he said.  
  
"I can, and I am," he replied. Kendall's eyes grew hotter. Looking over his shoulder, Jack saw Irina, Sark, and Lance walk out of the holding area. He nodded to the men he'd brought in with him, and some began putting on gas masks while the others covered the room. Then the remaining put on their masks, followed by Jack, Irina and Sark. Then, Jack and a few trusted others pulled out the canisters and filled the room with a dark green gas.  
  
***  
  
"Do you trust him?" Sark asked.  
  
Irina looked up from the report she was reading. Glancing back at the room where Jack slept, she asked herself the same question. "He helped us extract you."  
  
"That doesn't answer the question."  
  
The young man in front of her looked unaffected by her glare, but then he never had been. It was one reason she respected him. He sat down on the coffee table in front of her. "He's Jack Bristow, Irina. The one man who seems able to get under your skin."  
  
She didn't bother denying; they would both know she was lying. "He's different right now. Raw."  
  
"He could be putting on an act," he reminded her, his eyes hard. "Jack Bristow is a brilliant agent. He could be behind Sydney's disappearance."  
  
Irina thought of the last four months, of the desperate way he had made love to her, how he had acted like the man she married, the one she had only gotten to see in private. She thought about being in his bed for the last four nights, and the way he never rested, constantly twisting and turning, with his forehead knotted in concentration even as he slept. "No. He's not responsible."  
  
"The CIA interrogated me on the issue. It wasn't pleasant. They allowed Vaughn and Dixon to ask the questions. That could've been a part of a larger act."  
  
Irina set down the report next to her and curled her legs under her. "I hope that's the case, but I don't think so."  
  
"Why? Because he says so?"  
  
"Even if the CIA has her, he doesn't know it," she said firmly, letting him know that was not an issue to be debated. "But--we've been looking--Sloane and Jack and I--since she disappeared. Followed every imaginable lead. Some that we knew were foolish even as we raced after them."  
  
She leaned her head forward, allowing her hair to veil her face from him. "Arvin thinks she is either dead or that she faked her own disappearance. I fear that she's dead, because she wouldn't do this to him."  
  
"Who? Vaughn?"  
  
"Jack. Sydney loves him, and he loves her, and I think she knows that now. She wouldn't leave him in hell in an effort to get Sloane."  
  
"She has even more reason to hate Sloane now," Sark reminded her.  
  
"Yes," Irina agreed, masking her fury at the reminder. Sark and Sloane had not shared the details of that plan with her until it was already done. "He murdered her best friend. Almost murdered another. But she wouldn't let him feed on her father if she knew about it."  
  
***  
  
Jack struggled to get the controls to work. Thick polycarbonate doors were between him and Sydney. His daughter was banging on them and struggling to get them open with her fingers. "Daddy!" she was crying.  
  
After so many months, he had finally found her. She was in a large gray sweater, and her hair looked longer, but she was healthy and alive. If only the damn controls would work!  
  
Instinct made him look over his shoulder. "Sydney," he yelled in warning. She turned, but it was too late. The woman beside her had already slid a knife into her side. Sydney didn't make a sound; her face twisted with pain as the blood-covered knife was pulled out of her.  
  
She pressed her hands to her side and then pulled one away. Pressing it against the door, she called "Daddy" as she slid down to her knees. Jack struggled to open the doors, but the controls just wouldn't work.  
  
"No!" he bellowed.  
  
***  
  
Irina shut the door to the bedroom and struggled to hide her reaction. It had taken Jack several minutes to remember that he was on a plane heading back to Europe. He had been lost in the nightmare that had attacked him. Sark stared at her, and she was glad that she had insisted that Lance and the rest of the team travel back on another plane.  
  
"He's asleep again."  
  
"He's falling apart."  
  
She didn't bother to reply. Before she had kicked him out of the room, Sark had seen the trembling man sitting on the bed. "He needs to be getting more sleep. He only sleeps a few hours every night."  
  
"Irina--"  
  
"Don't."  
  
Sark looked down at his clasped hands. "You know that he's dangerous to us."  
  
She thought for a moment and then shook her head. "He's only a danger to himself."  
  
"He really believes she's still alive?"  
  
She closed her eyes and allowed buried memories to surface. "Jack was always a believer. So logical, but so naïve in his belief that good would win in the end. I used to laugh at that naivety, and then I fell in love with it."  
  
Sark looked up at her in amazement. She had spent so much time thinking about Jack's shattered control, the rawness of his feelings, she hadn't thought about her own. Her daughter was missing. Presumed dead by the agency she worked for and almost everyone who knew her. Except Jack.  
  
"You should take some time off. You also need time to grieve and to recover."  
  
Imagining herself on a beach, staring out at the water and thinking about Sydney, Irina felt her tight muscles relax. Then she thought of the man who had shook in her arms a few minutes ago believing he had watched their daughter die in a failed rescue attempt. "I can't."  
  
"When did it become your job to protect Jack Bristow?" Sark asked, apparently understanding her reasons for refusing even better than she did.  
  
Sitting down, she picked up the report and began reading it again. Sark sighed and walked away.  
  
***  
  
Jack almost didn't see him enter. Will Tippin had come a long way in the last six months. The younger man casually walked to the bar, not attracting any attention to himself, and giving Jack the briefest of glances. At one time, he wouldn't have looked at all, but apparently Will had learned that not looking was as noticeable as staring.  
  
Will picked up his Scotch on the rocks. "That was an impressive job you pulled getting Allison out of custody."  
  
Jack looked down at his almost empty class. "It was easier than getting Sark out."  
  
"Rumor has it that you got her out without raising any alarms." Will took another drink. The ice clicked against the glass.  
  
"Rumor's right," Jack replied, taking his own drink. He motioned to the bartender to pour him another.  
  
Blue eyes glanced his way. "Why did you ask me to meet you here, Jack?"  
  
"It's been six months, Will."  
  
Will's jaw jumped. "I know. I remember."  
  
"I still have contacts in the CIA, Will, but I need one that cares about finding Sydney as much as I do."  
  
Will was silent for several minutes. He finished his drink and motioned for another. "Jack, Sydney is probably--"  
  
Jack grinded his teeth. He wouldn't say the words, and he wasn't about to let Will say them either. "She's not."  
  
Two drinks later for both of them, Will asked, "So what do you want from me?"  
  
"Just leads," he answered. "Any intel that crosses your desk."  
  
"Jack--"  
  
"Just on Sydney."  
  
Will took a few more sips, and Jack watched him struggle with himself. Loyalty to the CIA. Loyalty to Sydney. Faith in Jack. Doubt in Jack. They all battled their way across his face. He needed to learn to wear his poker face at all times, but Jack could see that his daughter's friend was well on his way to becoming a fantastic field agent.  
  
"You're working for that bastard, Jack." The pain and the anger were muted, but Jack heard them and understood.  
  
"I'm sorry about Francie," he said.  
  
Anger kept the tears out of the blue eyes. "I am, too, Jack, and I'll get my revenge."  
  
"I know. I don't plan on stopping you. I'm not working for Sloane. I'm working to find my daughter, and I'll use the devil himself if I have to in order to find her. Now, will you help me?"  
  
Will took a sip and nodded. He motioned for the bill, and Jack told him, "On the receipt is a number where you can always reach me."  
  
Will looked at the check, tossed some money down on the bar, and stuck the receipt in his wallet. Jack didn't bother to remind him to burn it after memorizing the number; he knew he would. Just as he knew the Will he'd first met would've joked about taking this meeting off on his taxes. But that was before the woman he loved had been murdered. Before his guts had been allowed to spill down the drain of a bathtub by a woman wearing her face. 


	5. Chapter 5

It was almost six in the evening before he realized the significance of her clothing choice. She watched in the mirror as the anger and the denial washed across his face. He tossed aside the paper and stormed over to where she sat before the mirror getting ready for the evening.  
  
"Get out of those clothes."  
  
She turned to stare at him. He had lost so much weight he now looked sickly. The lines on his face were now etched on and deeply driven into his flesh. His emotions were not as raw; he tried to keep her at a distance, and sometimes he succeeded. But not often.  
  
Just as she usually failed to keep him safely away from her. "No."  
  
His hands snaked out and grabbed her shoulders. "You're not wearing mourning clothes, Irina."  
  
"She was my daughter."  
  
"Is."  
  
"Was. Jack, it's been a year."  
  
"She's not dead," he yelled, losing his control. The word he'd said--the word he'd not uttered since Sydney's disappearance--echoed in the room. He stumbled back, away from her. Angry at himself for saying those words, she knew, and angry at her for provoking him.  
  
He turned and shuffled over to the window. She followed him, unable to stay away. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she pressed her forehead to his back. She kissed it through the white silk shirt, made for him by the tailor Sloane had come to the house. He'd taken the liberty of ordering Jack a complete wardrobe of expensive suits.  
  
"Our daughter was brilliant, Jack. If she were alive, we'd know it. She would've gotten word to us or escaped on her own."  
  
"Irina, I can't--" His voice broke, and he leaned his forehead against the glass. "I can't give up. Not yet."  
  
"Jack, this search is killing you."  
  
"Then it can kill me."  
  
They stayed with her pressed against his back, both of them silent, until a maid told knocked on the door and informed them that guests were arriving.  
  
***  
  
Jack followed Sloane into his office. The last of the guests had finally left, and Irina had taken one look at her husband's face and left him alone with his friend. Former friend. Jack didn't even know what he thought of Arvin Sloane anymore. He was too tired to waste the energy thinking about it.  
  
"I can't go to Korea," he said, unbuttoning the jacket of one of his many expensive suits. Sloane had ordered them for him after they retrieved Allison for Sark. Jack did the occasional bit of work for him, and Sloane said he wanted him to look professional. Lost in the middle of yet another useless trail of clues, Jack hadn't protested.  
  
Tonight, one of their guests, a Cho Baek, had mentioned in passing Jack's trip to North Korea and how he looked forward to his help with his "little problem." Years of experience had kept him from reacting. "Your 'little problem' will not be a problem for long," he'd heard himself answer. He owed Arvin too much to publicly disagree with him. Irina's hand had gripped his thigh, and he sensed her displeasure.  
  
She was probably up in their bedroom right now prepared to argue with him about accepting the job, a job he had no intentions of accepting. Irina tried to keep him out of Arvin's clutches, protesting every time Arvin asked for one small favor. He appreciated her effort, but he could take care of himself.  
  
"You don't have to, but I would appreciate it," Arvin said, sitting down at his desk and motioning for Jack to sit down in front of him.  
  
Jack did, feeling like he was back in the old SD-6 office for a moment. "I need to look for Sydney."  
  
"All avenues are currently old," Arvin said, reaching over and grabbing a crystal vase. He silently offered Jack a drink, and Jack nodded his acceptance. "You need to do something to keep yourself occupied."  
  
"I can interview--"  
  
"You've interviewed everyone enough, Jack." Arvin's voice was firm as he walked around the desk and handed Jack a snifter.  
  
"If any new clues--"  
  
"I'll contact you."  
  
Jack shook his head and took another drink. "I guess you got what you wanted."  
  
Arvin studied him for a moment. "Not really. And, if you want to know the truth, if you and Irina would like to go on a vacation, I would gladly disappoint Cho and send someone else in your place."  
  
Jack thought of sitting day after day without anything to distract him. He almost shivered at the idea. "I don't need a vacation, Arvin."  
  
His friend--his former friend--stared at him. He set down his glass and leaned back against the desk. "I disagree. Irina's worried, too."  
  
"She worries too much," Jack said, wanting to change the subject.  
  
"It's been a year, Jack."  
  
His jaw tightened. "I know how long it has been, Arvin. I know the exact minute my daughter hung up on a 911 operator. I don't need you or Irina reminding me of the date."  
  
He stood. Arvin took a step forward. "Remember when Sydney was four years old, and Irina and Emily left us in charge of looking after her? They went out for a day of shopping, and we thought it would be so easy."  
  
Closing his eyes, Jack could picture his little girl smiling in front of him. The clothes her mother had put on her that morning were destroyed. Both of her knees were scraped and a large bruise was forming under her eye, but her smile said that she thought her day in the park with her father was one of the best days ever. He gasped and opened his eyes.  
  
Arvin's concerned eyes bore into his. "I can't do this," Jack said, stumbling back towards the door.  
  
"You need to talk about her, Jack."  
  
"She's not dead, Arvin," he snapped, turning on his heels but holding onto the door knob.  
  
"Maybe not, but you won't talk about her, and you don't let us talk about her. It's not healthy."  
  
He squeezed the door handle so hard it hurt. After struggling to find the words, he simply shook his head and walked out the door. He marched up four steps before his weak legs gave out, and he was forced to lean against the wall. Memories of Sydney tried to play through his head, but he managed to force them all away. He didn't have time for remembering; he had a job to do.  
  
Standing up straight, he grabbed the railing and began to jog up the curved staircase. He needed to tell us wife that he was going to North Korea, and he needed to be ready for the fight they were about to have.  
  
Somewhere on the twenty-fifth step or so, he asked himself when he started thinking of Irina as his wife again. He didn't have the energy to give it much thought though, so he pushed it away and continued up to their room.  
  
***  
  
"Will, thank you." Jack heard his voice trembling, and he saw the surprise and concern on the agent's face, but he didn't care. After fourteen months, countless hours, endless seconds, he finally had the lead he needed to get his daughter.  
  
"You may want to get Sloane's agents inside the Triad to confirm it, first, but this looks legit to the CIA."  
  
"What makes you think Sloane has agents inside the Triad?"  
  
Will was silent, giving him a look that said the naïve young man he used to be was long gone. "The CIA doesn't plan to follow up on this lead, Jack."  
  
The paper in Jack's hand crumbled. "Why not?"  
  
The blonde man hesitated a moment before admitting, "The world's changed. They don't trust her anymore than they trust you. They think you may have engineered her disappearance."  
  
Jack's jaw ached. "Kendall knows better."  
  
"For what it's worth, Jack," Will said, leaning forward on the metal railing, which was already slightly damp from the dew off the bay. "Kendall said that was bullshit."  
  
Straightening out the paper in his hand, Jack admitted, "We never got along, but he was always a straight shooter."  
  
"He liked you." Will ran a hand over blood-shot eyes. "He knows I'm helping you--lord knows I made enough mistakes those first few times--and he turns a blind eye. He understands what you want to do, even if he hates your methods."  
  
"He'd order my death in a heartbeat."  
  
Will nodded. "I don't think anyone doubts that." Taking in a deep breath, he stretched and started walking towards his car. "Bring her home, Jack."  
  
A hint of a smile played on his face as he fantasized doing that very deed. He could almost smell Syd's shampoo, could almost feel her in his arms, crying on his shoulder. Could almost hear her calling him "Dad" as they rushed away from her guards.  
  
"I plan to."  
  
Opening his door, Will tossed a smile in his direction. Jack allowed himself a moment to breathe in the cool night air. All of his work, all of his faith, was finally going to pay off. He was finally going to bring his daughter home.  
  
Opening his eyes, he reached for his cell phone. It was time to get to work.  
  
***  
  
Jack pressed himself flat against the wall. He looked over at Irina, her face covered in black paint and her hair hidden beneath a toboggan. Her eyes sparkled. This time the evidence was all there. The Triad had their daughter, and they were there to get her out safely.  
  
Revenge, as Arvin had said earlier, would be taken care of later.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Jack nodded to the front man. The attack began, and all hell broke loose.  
  
It took Jack only seconds to realize that the Triad had been waiting for them. Bullets wheezed through the air. Glass shattered around them. Metal thumped as it was ripped to shreds. Men and women screamed from both sides as they fell, and the linoleum floor grew slick with blood.  
  
Jack fell on his shoulder, and pain ripped its way through his body. He ignored it, shouting orders to his team, and struggling to find a brief glimpse of Irina in the chaos.  
  
Suddenly silence filled the room. The sound of footsteps crunching glass drew near him. Without a shadow of a doubt, Jack realized that this was all a set-up. A set-up to get him. All those opportunities the CIA had had to get photos of a captured "Sydney" from a distance had been too perfect, and he should've realized that fact. The sudden influx of information from an agent inside the Triad should've also alerted him.  
  
His quick mind arrived at answers to questions he didn't have the time to ask. He knew who was behind those slowly approaching footsteps. They had been playing a game of this and that for over a decade. Jack saw it as business; Hernandez Vega saw it as personal. Closing his eyes, he laid his head down, knowing that they couldn't see him behind the large lab table in front of him. When he heard the wheezing breath of Vega, he opened his eyes and aimed his pistol. "Should've planed better," he said as his bullet wormed its way through Vega's skull.  
  
His next bullet found the heart of the woman standing next to Vega, the woman who looked similar enough to his daughter from a distance, but who was so obviously not her when seen close-up. She made a small gasping sound and then fell on him. Her blood joined the blood of others his shirt had soaked up from the floor. Pushing her away, he stood.  
  
Following his lead, his team jumped up and quickly eradicated the few remaining Triad members. They might not have been prepared for such an onslaught, but Sloane and Irina had made sure their people were the best in the business. Jack admired their skill as he fought along beside them.  
  
Silence reigned again, this time for good. Vega's plan for revenge had failed. Jack looked at the few remaining team members beside him and nodded his appreciation. They nodded their thanks back to him, and then began to search among the dead and the wounded for their colleagues.  
  
The occasional pistol fire told them when they found a live Triad member. They were making sure that everyone understood that messing with Sloane and his organization, even if it was just to get revenge against one man of that organization, was a foolish endeavor.  
  
Jack turned and nearly fell again on the slick linoleum. He was expecting to see Irina's face. Instead he saw a young kid looking down at her body. He yelled and raced forward. Picking her up, he couldn't tell what was her blood and what wasn't.  
  
With shaking hands, he reached for her neck. A pulse. Weak, but still beating. Jack began yelling for medical help, even as he accepted the chances of her surviving were slim.  
  
Vega's plan for revenging a ten-year-old wrong might just have been perfectly executed after all. 


	6. Chapter 6

Jack was slumped on a bench, his back pressed against the sterile white walls, when Arvin found him. His friend studied his blood-soaked clothes and blood-stained hands, but he said nothing as he sat down next to him. He took off his purple sunglasses and put them in the pocket of his white linen jacket. One of these days, Jack was going to tell him that he was no Don Johnson, but not today.  
  
He glanced down the overly-lit hallway to where two double doors remained closed. The same damn doors he had been staring at for over two hours waiting for someone, anyone, to come out and tell him that Irina was okay.  
  
"Do you remember the night you and I sat out in a waiting room waiting for information on Irina?"  
  
Arvin's eyebrows knotted in confusion. He looked away before he answered. Jack knew he understood. They were best friends; in spite of all the betrayal, all of the anger, they both knew each other. Faults. Strengths. Everything. "Yes, but I ended up staying out in that waiting room on my own."  
  
Jack closed his eyes, remembering the way his stomach had twisted that night. He remembered the frustration, the decision to ignore the rules because he *had* to get to his wife. "You didn't say a word when I got up off the bench and declared that no nurse was going to keep me from Laura."  
  
Arvin looked over at him and smiled. "I wasn't crazy."  
  
Jack smiled and looked down at his red hands. The blood looked more like rust now instead of anything that had drained from a body. Seeing the color on his skin made him remember the little red creature that had pushed its way out of his wife's body. He blinked away tears. "Irina nearly broke my hand while she pushed. I kept apologizing for my role in her pain. The doctor kept glaring and the nurse made a few pointed comments about how fathers had no place in the birthing room."  
  
They were both silent for a few minutes. A candy stripper walked out of the double doors, a giant grin on her face as she bounced and pushed a cart forward. The smile disappeared and the cart sped up when she saw Jack's frown.  
  
"Remember when Sydney was two, and she fell down the stairs? I don't think I had ever been that afraid before. The doctor was so calm as he stitched up her leg. Then he made her smile when he made a little dog for her out of a balloon. I wanted to strangle him for not realizing how scary it was. Of course he knew exactly what we were feeling. He'd seen a million terrified parents, and knew the best way to calm us down was to keep her calm."  
  
"Jack--"  
  
He heard the concern in Arvin's voice. Appreciated it. Outside of Irina, he had not been able to talk about Sydney. Not as a person. An assignment. A job that needed to be done. An agent who needed to be rescued. But he couldn't talk about his daughter. Never his daughter.  
  
"It was the first time, but wasn't the last time Sydney got stitches. Remember the time she climbed up the tree in your back yard?"  
  
Arvin's voice was soft when he answered. He had loved Sydney, too, in his own way. "Yes. We never did figure out how she managed it."  
  
"She was my daughter and Irina's. If she wanted something, nothing was going to stand in her way, not even gravity."  
  
The double doors opened before Arvin could reply. The surgeon pulled off his cap as he walked towards Jack, who stood up and tried to prepare himself for the worst.  
  
***  
  
"Eat," Arvin said as he set down a tray with a small bowl of soup on it.  
  
Jack shook his head. "I'm not hungry."  
  
"It wasn't a request, Agent Bristow."  
  
"I haven't been Agent Bristow in over a year, Arvin, you know that."  
  
"I do," Arvin said, sitting down in an empty chair across the bed. He looked at the pale woman lying there and sighed. "I also know that at heart, you are a follower, and you're used to taking my orders."  
  
Jack's stomach rolled when he looked down at the food. "I can't eat."  
  
"Having you in the hospital won't help her. When she'll need you, you won't be able to be there for her, Jack."  
  
He didn't even have the strength to argue. "Fuck you."  
  
Arvin chuckled. Jack knew he was remembering a night where they'd both kept themselves sane by trying to remember every curse they knew in every language. "I'm doing it for self preservation."  
  
Jack looked over at his friend and saw that he had lost sleep the last few days, too. His skin was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. "Self preservation?"  
  
Nodding his head towards the woman on the bed, he answered, "She will kill me if she wakes up and finds out I've allowed you to collapse at her bedside."  
  
Jack reached for the soup and set the tray in his lap. Barely showing his distaste, he picked up the spoon and dipped it into the dark broth. When he finally brought it to his mouth, he was surprised by how good it tasted. He took another bite.  
  
Arvin nodded and stood. "I'm having them bring a cot in here for you to sleep on during the night. And I'll have someone come by once a day to keep you informed on our hunt for Sydney."  
  
"Arvin." He heard the footsteps stop behind him. "I'm tired."  
  
A hand lay on his shoulder. "I know."  
  
Jack heard the sound of Arvin turning to leave again. He forced himself to say the words he had been denying for over a year. "She's dead."  
  
A painful silence filled the room. "I know."  
  
"If she wasn't dead--"  
  
"We'd already have heard from her."  
  
His shoulders began to shake. "I didn't--"  
  
Arvin took the tray out of his lap and set aside. He squatted down beside him. "Jack--"  
  
"My daughter's dead, and I may have killed Irina with my desperate desire to deny that truth."  
  
They both looked at the woman lying on the bed surrounded by tubes and bandages. Arvin didn't answer him. He didn't need to.  
  
***  
  
Irina walked to where Jack sat. His arms were across his knees as he stared out into the ocean. Ever since their arrival, he had spent hours there on the beach, just staring. It would've worried her except she watched him slowly heal as the month passed.  
  
While she healed physically, he healed emotionally. The nightmares were making way for sleep-filled nights, and he began eating again. And he talked. About Sydney. Constantly. If he was not looking out at the water in silence, he was talking about their daughter. Some of the memories they shared, but most they didn't.  
  
Irina thought of her years of searching for Rambaldi's device, a machine that was helping her and Sloane take over the world. But it couldn't give her what she wanted the most right now: more time with her daughter.  
  
She sank down into the warm sand beside him. Her white pants would show the stains, but she didn't care. She thought she understood his desire to watch the power of the waves, thought she could feel some of their healing power herself. Watching them slam against the shore, everything felt timeless.  
  
He waited until the sun was blood-red on the water before he spoke. "I take it Sloane called."  
  
Nodding, she held her thin white blouse tighter to her body. The wind was starting to get a chill in it now that the sun was setting. "Yes, he wants to know if I'm ready to get back into the action."  
  
Jack continued to stare out at the ocean. "What did you tell him?"  
  
She pushed her hair behind her ear. "I told him I would discuss it with you."  
  
"Why?" He finally looked at her.  
  
"I don't know," she admitted. Even as she had said the words to Sloane, she had wondered what was going through her own mind. She had never truly felt the need to answer to anyone for her actions. She'd never allowed a man she was sleeping with to decide her course, but she had left Jack once. Left him while knowing she loved him, but believing there was something else out there, something bigger than love, that she needed to explore.  
  
She had done it then, but she didn't think she could do it now. Or maybe the real issue was that she didn't want to do it now. She liked being with Jack, liked bouncing ideas off of him, liked hearing him talk about their daughter, and liked knowing that he would die to protect her because that was the kind of man he was. Maybe it was different now because he really knew her. It was easier to leave when you told yourself it was all a lie.  
  
"What do you want me to say, Irina?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
He stared at her, and she stared back at him, letting him see her. He nodded and then turned his focus back to the sea. "I never thought to work with Sloane again."  
  
"You don't have to."  
  
"I'm good at what I do, Irina. If I was going to stop working, I would've done it when my wife died and my entire life crumbled around my eyes."  
  
His words were said without heat, without accusation. She put her hand in the sand, picked up a pile, and let it sift through her fingers. "Jack, we never talk about the past."  
  
Some of the sand blew on his shirt. "The past is the past, Irina. I'm not sure--Sydney's--I don't want to go over our past. I want it to stay there."  
  
She thought of the explanations she wanted to give. Explanations she had thought of so many times in the middle of the night, but never uttered. Not to him. Not to Sydney. Looking at the man beside her, a man who had aged a decade over the last two years, she knew they would never be said.  
  
After all, what would be the point? He knew her reasons as well as she did, and that didn't make what she did right for him. He was hurt, and there wasn't anything she could say or do to change that. But if she had done anything else, she wouldn't be the woman she was either.  
  
"What about the future, Jack? Can we discuss that?"  
  
He was silent for a long while, and she could tell he was studying the word as if it was a strange and new idea. "The future?" He waited a moment longer and then she saw the edge of his lips curl. "Yeah, we can talk about the future. Now." 


	7. Chapter 7

They both wore black on the second anniversary of their daughter's disappearance. Irina could only hope that she had died quickly. It was the only way she allowed herself to believe. Her nightmares had given her enough possible scenarios to choose from over the last two years.  
  
Jack was sitting in front of her, leaning back, with her legs and arms wrapped around him as she rested her chin on his shoulder. "I can't believe you managed to capture so much without me knowing it," Jack said, a hint of anger in his voice. She knew the videos would upset him, but she also knew he needed to see them.  
  
"The KGB wanted to keep me happy after they decided that I would be useful to them," she said, hugging him tighter.  
  
Sydney's laughter filled the room as she chased after a kickball; Francie laughed with her. And Irina mourned the loss of two wonderful women as she watched the little girls they had been.  
  
The slight shifting in Jack's muscles warned her that he was about to ask a question that would be painful. "Do you regret not taking her?"  
  
She was silent as Sydney danced at her first dance. When the scene changed to six months later, she sighed. "No."  
  
He tensed in her arms. "Why?"  
  
"I thought you didn't want to discuss the past."  
  
"Not about us, but I want to know everything about her."  
  
Irina sighed and shifted, pressing herself closer to him. "I love her, and I wanted what was best for her. And that was you."  
  
She knew he didn't believe her, so she continued speaking. "From the moment she was born, she was a daddy's girl. She adored you. And I knew she would be safe with you."  
  
"She wasn't safe."  
  
"Oh, yes, Jack, she was. I know you couldn't be the father you wanted to be, and I know you couldn't be the father you would've been had 'Laura' kept 'living', but you protected her with everything you had. I'm not sure I would've been that strong. I wasn't that strong. I let an ancient prophecy, one that was wrong, guide me instead of letting love choose my path."  
  
"I always loved her, Irina, even when I wasn't there for her," he whispered.  
  
Irina rubbed her hand over his hair in acknowledgement. Before she could say anything, the cell phone by the bed rang. Irina tensed as Jack paused the video and answered it. Her husband carried two phones. One was used constantly by him. The other was just left on waiting for the one person with its number to call. And she thought she knew who that one person was: Will, Jack's contact into the CIA. If they had found a new lead . . .  
  
Her stomach protested the idea, but she knew she would follow him as he chased this new lead down. Even if it destroyed them both.  
  
***  
  
"I need to see you," Will's voice said as soon as he answered. The man no longer attempted to make small talk or do the expected greetings.  
  
Jack looked at the frozen Sydney on the TV screen. She had been so beautiful. He had made no attempt to contact Will and let him know that the search was now over. Jack had finally accepted the truth, no matter how bitter it had been. "It will be a few days--"  
  
"I'm in Paris now."  
  
Jack knew he showed his surprise. Irina stood up from the couch they'd been sitting in and walked towards him. "How did you know I was in Paris?"  
  
The laugh on the other side was chilling. "You're not the only person with contacts now, Jack. I've learned a lot over the last couple of years."  
  
Jack nodded, although the man on the other side of the phone couldn't see him. "Where?"  
  
Will gave him instructions and hung up without saying good-bye.  
  
Irina licked her lips. "A lead?"  
  
Sighing, Jack put down the phone and nodded. "Probably."  
  
"What are--"  
  
"I'm going to tell him that it's time to grieve and to move on."  
  
Jack watched Irina relax. Reaching forward, he grabbed her by the neck and kissed her. "I won't be long."  
  
Grabbing up a leather coat Irina had bought for him, he left the room.  
  
***  
  
Jack walked into the bar. It took him a moment to spot Will who was sitting back in a booth in the corner. Making his way through the smoke, Jack studied his daughter's friend and saw all the pain that was forever etched on his face. His quest to find Sydney had harmed so many lives.  
  
Will spoke first. "Officer 2300844 called tonight looking for connection confirmation from Hong Kong."  
  
He recognized the number and froze. "Impossible."  
  
The beginning of the smile on Will's face left. "Jack, all indications--"  
  
"Say that my daughter is dead, Will. I've accepted that fact, and you should, too."  
  
Opening up a file folder that Jack hadn't noticed until it was in front of him, Will pulled out some photographs and handed them to him. While looking down at his daughter's face, he waited for that old feeling to overtake him. He wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that Sydney was alive.  
  
But he didn't. The woman in these pictures was a double, altered genetically or through surgery. He couldn't tell, and it didn't matter.  
  
It wasn't her. And he wouldn't allow his love for his daughter to blind him this time to the dangers this double presented to him and his.  
  
He handed the photographs back. "Whoever is in that safe house is not Sydney."  
  
"Jack--"  
  
"It's not her. Just as the woman spotted in photographs of a K-  
  
Directorate prison was not her."  
  
Will held up the pictures. "That was from a distance. These are straight shots of her entering a safe house."  
  
Standing, Jack shook his head. "It's not her."  
  
***  
  
Pulling in front of the house in his silver BMW M5, Jack waited for the houseboy to rush out. Jack stood and watched as the other man drove off in his car, taking it to the garage. Inhaling a deep breath of the cool Paris air, Jack turned and walked into the house.  
  
He went to Arvin's study, needing to inform him of tonight's events. They needed to be prepared for whatever havoc the double would cause for them. Standing outside the door, he heard Irina's voice inside and paused. She had gone through enough with his crazy searches for Sydney, but he couldn't hide tonight's events from her. She needed to be told about the danger, too.  
  
"He said he would be back soon," Irina was saying when he pushed open the door.  
  
She smiled and strolled over to him. The smile left when her eyes met his. "What's wrong?"  
  
He took her hand in his and squeezed before facing Arvin. "We have a problem."  
  
***  
  
What greater pain could mortals have than this:  
  
To see their children dead before their eyes?  
  
Euripides 


End file.
